


i woke up just in time, now i wake up by your side

by middlecrumpets, shapeofyourbody



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, a very late quarantine fic, slime puppy in lockdown, this is what happens when queer women are thirsty for one (1) jean isabel smith cameron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27687521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlecrumpets/pseuds/middlecrumpets, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shapeofyourbody/pseuds/shapeofyourbody
Summary: Whatever they were doing before certainly didn’t make him think Gerri would allow them to live together in her Riverside penthouse for three months straight with no end in sight.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	i woke up just in time, now i wake up by your side

He can’t believe it’s been three months of this. Three months of living in Gerri’s apartment, three months of his Cool Ranch Doritos appearing in her pantry without him having to order them, and three months of the later-in-the-night snack he prefers with his head between her thighs. Three months of goddamn quarantine.

Though silence fell across the city in March, Gerri’s apartment has seldom had a moment of quiet. Almost seven months now of her no longer being just a name on a piece of paper, the two of them side by side, CEO and COO cleaning up the shrapnels of Kendall’s truth bomb. Every day as of late has been filled to the brim with Webex meetings, safety protocol bullshit, and frankly, he’s tired and wrung out of trying to be a normo and feels like crawling out of his goddamn skin suit more often than not.

Whatever they were doing before certainly didn’t make him think Gerri would allow them to live together in her Riverside penthouse for three months straight with no end in sight. He showed up late one night at the beginning of this shitshow, not even sure what it was he wanted from her at the time, skin tingling, head buzzing. Even though he’s been an idiot flying by the seat of his pants his whole life, he truly feels like he’s free-falling for the first time in the face of a fucking global pandemic.

So—he went to Gerri’s. He went to Gerri’s because in all the shitshows they’ve been put through, she was always a port in the storm, his port of call that could calm him with a bat of her eyelashes, a quiet shush under her breath, or sometimes even just an adjustment of her glasses and a roll of her eyes. Before this, he was in and out based on when she deemed him worthy to come home with her after a long day. But as their arrangement and their professional partnership evolved, his presence in her home became somewhat a staple. 

He went to her apartment because he all he ever wants to do is see her. Brought with him a few bags from Citarella, joking about how she was part of the at-risk age group and shouldn’t be going to the grocery store herself. Another eye roll, her stepping aside to let him in. And that was three months ago. 

Stone cold killer bitch that she is, she keeps him on his toes every moment of the day. Not quite ready to divulge too much information, dangling just enough to keep him hooked. He should probably talk to his shrink about this, but no amount of talking will likely make him understand why the mere presence of her can still all the flashing lights in his brain. She fascinates him, the way she moves, the way she speaks, the way she holds herself up in a boardroom. Steely veneer with an unexpected essence of softness beneath all those skirt suits, softness to which not many people have access. Times where he’s on the receiving end of that softness—in Hungary, in Tern Haven, over the past three months—he’s dying to know if he’s the only person with this kind of admittance to her world. If he’s the only person she believes in the way she does him. He wants to dig deep into her, be the one to whom she spills her secrets. 

On that first night, with the Citarella bags dangling from his arm like an idiot, he most certainly never expected he’d one day be sitting on the floor on her bathroom, smoking a joint while she’s in the bath with bubbles and shit. 

It was another shitbag day full of furlough talks, stock prices, and investor concerns. They had just finished dinner from that sushi place on 72nd Street she loves so much, and she said she wanted a bath to relax.

“Need someone to scrub your back?” He looks up from his phone with a devilish grin. He’s testing boundaries with her, knows she's never allowed him an inside look at her bath time in all the nights before. A quirk of her lips and she starts down the hall heading towards the master en-suite, calling out behind her, “I’m not entirely sure you’re up for the job.”

She stops just before she’s out of his sight, turns and gives him a quick wink, adding, “But do bring me a martini, ok?” It goes straight through him, the wink and the meaning behind her request enough to make his dick twitch.

As he busies himself collecting the Grey Goose and the vermouth in the kitchen, he finds himself oddly at peace standing in his socks on the tile she undoubtedly hand-picked when she got this apartment after Baird died. Roman has truthfully never been comfortable in his own apartments. Always secured by one of his jerkoff assistants, thinking he’d like the Patrick Bateman aesthetic, cold and gray—detached, a better word for it. Why the fuck does he even need 3 bathrooms and a bathtub? Bathtubs are for idiots. Bathtubs are for fucking geriatric people to slip in.

But with a martini in hand, pushing through the crack in the bathroom door she left for him, announcing “here you are, Lady Geraldine” with a flair, even he has to raise an eyebrow when he sees the lavender bubbles popping off the surface. Gerri in the tub is easily the most exciting thing for him to focus his attention on so far today. 

How could he possibly have known until this moment? But now he gets it. He fucking gets bathtubs.

Seeing Gerri in one, he wants to fucking thank whoever came up with this shit. This is a sight of her he has never been privy to before. He’s been in her bed night after night, and her apartment even longer than that, but he has never seen her with her armor down like this, floating in a sea of lavender and bubbles and shit. Was asking all he had to do? Something so vulnerable, and yet she didn’t hesitate one bit when he posed the question as a joke. Something so delicate, so easily handed to him with a quip, disguised as her idea when she asked him to bring her a martini in the bath. 

“If you care about spending time in here with me, you would rephrase that nickname,” she says, their fingers touching when he hands her the martini. A speck of bubble left on his right hand. Another mark of hers on him. 

He watches her throat as she takes a sip of the martini, can’t help but wish she would put those delicate fingers on him again right then and there, even though it’s only been less than 24 hours. 

He’s never wanted this kind of intimacy with anyone else, never wanted someone to throw him open and see him for all he is. Suddenly feeling out of place, he sits down on the tile with his back against the edge of the tub, pulling one of the few joints he keeps in her apartment out of his pocket and lighting it up. He feels fuzzy at the turn this evening has taken, longing for a calmer buzz. 

Her hears Gerri stifle a chuckle at the sight of the joint, feels her flick a few drops of water against the back of his neck playfully. Part reprimand for daring to smoke in her freshly painted bathroom, part unspoken understanding for what he needs in this moment.

Her hair is half haphazardly clipped up, tendrils falling off on each side to frame her face. The steam rising from the bath gives her a dewy look, the humidity turning her tendrils into loose ringlets. The whole bathroom feel like it’s in mist. Or is it his joint? Who the fuck cares. Here she is, a goddess amongst men, and him, the resident dipshit lucky enough to witness it. 

She starts recapping idiotic bullshit Karl said on a call this afternoon, and his fingers are just itching to tuck the loose strand of hair behind her ear. Would that be too intimate? He’s never had this impulse with any other women before. Not the Tabithas of the world, the gorgeous, leggy, blondes. But here, in Gerri’s apartment, even having properly lived with her for three months, sharing her bed and doing things with each other that he would have shivered at the thought of before her, he’s still confused about boundaries between the two of them. 

They’re long past being separated by a bathroom door, but small intimate acts like these still make him doubt himself. His flighty shitbag self. 

He takes a protracted drag. Holds it in longer than he should. 

Would he ruin this? Would Gerri turn around and decide she’s had enough of his antics? He has lived his whole life running up against rejections—his father, his siblings, every girlfriend who he's failed to fuck properly—but the thought of Gerri turning back the clock on them one day makes him want to hurl. He coughs a little, eyes watering a bit, and he tells himself it’s the weed, not the sick thoughts he’s inflicting on himself. 

He never believed himself capable of a normo relationship, if that’s even what he and Gerri are doing, couldn’t even bring himself to have phone sex with Tabitha. But with this woman, he wants to try and give all he can. This woman, who knows him and sees him for all he is, should scare the living shit out of him—and yet here he is, still, wanting to dive head first and drown in her. 

He’s deep in his self recriminations when he feels more water droplets on his face. Gerri is flicking water in his direction trying to get his attention. “Earth to Romeo?” 

“Hey, hey, watch it, Lady Macbeth—this joint is top grade shit. Don’t you dare put it out,” he jests, giving her a weak smile, trying to shake himself free of his thoughts. The voices that haunt the back of his mind. 

“Oh, well, sorry I couldn’t even stand against a joint for your attention.” He turns to face the door to gather his thoughts and hears the water splash, figures she’s getting into a more comfortable position. 

“Nah, just thinking about, you know, your assistant and how leggy, and blonde...,” he trails off mid-sentence. Because there she is, getting out of the tub, water dripping from her body, unclothed, and he’s in awe. And by the time he’s registered she’s naked right in front of him, she already has the fluffiest towel he’s ever seen wrapped around herself. The softness she embodies at this moment planets away from General Counsel Gerri Kellman of the cold sleek boardrooms, and he thinks to himself that he will fucking chop off his limbs for science if it means he can keep seeing her like this. 

He scrambles to stand because she’s wrapped in this towel, more pieces of her hair now falling out of their clip, and suddenly all he wants to do is kiss her. It’s these moments that anchor him, that wake him up from his nightmares of abandonment issues. These moments she willingly shares with him that untether him from his prickly reactions to intimacy, no longer gun shy in the face of her and her acceptance of him. 

He leans in for a kiss, careful of the end his joint, but she puts a hand on his chest. It leaves a wet spot on his work shirt, making space between them. 

“Uh huh, I believe you were fantasizing about my assistant? I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that imagery,” she bites as she purses her lips, giving him that look that bores right through him. The way she slices through him but makes him whole. 

He puts his hands up over his head. “Woah, woah, woah, your honor, I never said I was fantasizing about her!” Gerri quirks one eyebrow so high it almost hits the ceiling, staring at him to wait and see what other bullshit will spill out of his mouth. 

“If you would let me finish, Counselor Kellman,” he says, taking a drag, “I was thinking…even with all the leggy blondes out there, this is where I want to be. And you’re who I want to be with.” He wanted it to come out flippant with his presumed-by-the-public playboy air, but instead, it sounded so sincere he’s nervous that he has gone too far, said too much, blurted out pure turd the way he used to in board meetings. It feels like a lifetime ago compared to the man standing in this bathroom right now. 

When he looks up, she’s looking back at him with a small, shy smile, a soft pink flush on her cheeks. Upon seeing that smile—tinged with a remnant of her day’s red lipstick still lingering on—his nervousness dissipates as quickly as it snuck up on him.

She gives him a soft kiss on the lips, both understanding it’s her way of accepting his words. “Now get out of here so I can get dressed.”

“Or…you know, I could give you a hand.” He runs his finger gently over the top of her towel on her chest, which earns him an eye roll. And because he loves to push her to see how far she’ll let him take his bullshit, he starts to gently tug on the towel, hoping to unravel it. 

“Not so fast, naughty boy.” She swats his hand away and jabs her finger towards the door, one eyebrow cocking up just far enough that he knows means she’s serious. “Out. Good things come to those who wait.” She hasn’t even touched him but he feels his muscles start to tense. 

“Leave the joint,” she says, extending her hand, the other still clutching firmly to the edge of her towel to hold it in place. “Yes, mommy,” he singsongs, taking one last drag. She unexpectedly opens her mouth to catch the blowback and he redirects its course, bringing his face close enough that he can smell the expensive body wash he’s come to know is her signature after all these weeks—sweet musk and sandalwood, something or other—and their fingers brush sweetly as he passes it to her. The touch lasts half a second, but he suddenly feels 12, the image of Gerri inhaling inches from his face enough to make him hard. The side of her mouth curls into a slight smile as he finishes emptying his lungs and turns on his heel to go pace the bedroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

—

Once she’s alone, Gerri delicately lets the towel fall to the floor, dabbing her face dry with one hand as she takes another drag and peers into the mirror. Her hair is slightly frizzed from the steam but she doesn’t care; she knows Roman doesn’t either, perhaps even prefers the pared down version of the steely, straight-haired veneer she brings to the office every day, a creature of habit for decades. Back to basics, her White Album. 

Another hit. It’s been so long since she’s done this.

She stubs the joint out on the side of the sink, leaving it in the soap dish and chuckling softly thinking ahead to the moment she’ll find it there tomorrow morning and smile. She picks up her glasses from where they’ve rested on the edge of the tub and firmly affixes them back to her face, the last bits of steam clinging to the lenses evaporating enough to allow her to peer into the mirror.

Despite herself, she undoes and re-does her hair from its clip, attempting to position the frazzled wisps just so. Even after all these months of physical closeness, a soft, tugging part of her psyche still wants to uphold the decorum so intrinsic to her public persona, to be good for Roman in all the ways he apparently perceives her to be, even in her own home. The age difference between them, though she more often than not compartmentalizes it within the back of the lowest drawer in the filing cabinet of her brain, is not lost on her. Staring at her bare, unmade reflection this close, it’s hard not to twinge at the absurdity of it all: at the absolute, utter absurdity of a man her daughters’ age routinely here, in her bathroom, in her bed, in her arms, of his own volition.

At first Roman’s doting felt foreign to Gerri, the late-night phone calls setting off alarm bells in her brain as words she’d never said to another human being tumbled out of her mouth with an ease that was frankly surprising. She’d admittedly never felt like much of a sexual being, at least not in recent decades and certainly not towards the end of her marriage to Baird.

She still doesn’t know where it comes from sometimes, the animalistic part of her mind that slowly evolved to activate like a flipped switch whenever Roman’s voice grew small and his breathing quickened on the other end of the line. It’s made her feel powerful in ways she doesn’t quite understand, even now, akin to sticking the landing at the end of a high-wire board meeting, a buzz that feels better than any drug ever could.

Her mind snaps back to her face in the mirror and she remembers the boy on the other side of the door. The buzzing starts behind her ears and she’s not entirely sure whether it’s the weed or the thought of Roman’s dick shivering in anticipation of what they’re about to do or both, but it’s happened enough times in recent weeks that she’s ready. 

She pulls a lacy separates set out of the cabinet and wriggles into it, first taking her time on the three tiny buttons running up the front of the bra. It’s one of her best, smoky grey La Perla with lacy macrame leaves running up and down the edges. The high waist of the underwear digs into her soft, supple skin as she pulls it up over the parts of herself she feels an urge to hide, past her bellybutton and her c-section scar, reminders of more of what she compartmentalizes to get through the day.

Tugging her silky robe down from its hook on the back of the door and sliding it around herself one arm at a time, Gerri suddenly realizes what she’s forgotten, the small but mighty pinnacle of the look she’s donned so many nights before. She kicks herself for having sent Roman into the bedroom. _Goddamnit._

She opens the door a crack and peers into the dimly lit alcove. Roman is prone on the bed with his face towards the ceiling, his legs dangling over the side, not quite touching the floor.

“Roman,” she spits with the door barely ajar, her tone pithy and commanding. “Close your eyes.” He lets out a stifled breath it sounds like he’s been holding in for the full ten minutes she’s been busying herself in the bathroom, half-laugh, half relief of the tension that’s continuing to build inside him.

“Are they closed?” She squints into the darkness, a bedside lamp the only other source of light that illuminates the room outside of the faint glow from the apartments an avenue away reflecting through the open window, full of people and lives they’ll never know.

“Aye-aye, captain Kellman.” She hears a smile creep across his face as his legs kick lackadaisically against the side of the bed. An uninhibited giggle slips through her lips. The buzz has started to spread through her neck, her arms. No doubt his too.

She tiptoes through the room in a beeline to her armoire, cinching the robe around her waist as she goes, a deep-rooted instinct to cover herself even though his eyes are closed, even though she knows he’s seen everything anyway. She’s practically running and she doesn’t know why. There have been so many moments in the past three months that have made Gerri feel this way, out of her usual depth, her heart skipping beats like a giddy schoolgirl.

For someone usually overly prepared, overtly in control of any situation where men are concerned—especially Roman; silly, childlike Roman—to continuously accede to the vulnerability of baring herself both literally and figuratively has been an exercise in tenderness. Of giving and receiving, the latter a muscle she hasn’t flexed in what feels like a lifetime. Perhaps maybe ever. She knows she wields the power in whatever this is that’s blossomed between them; she’s heard Roman submit to her on the other side of the phone she’s tethered to upwards of 20 hours a day enough to know it, again and again and again, always the same result. But something about being forced into close quarters with him broke something open in her, marbles falling out of a bag and bouncing across a ceramic floor. It’s a wonder she let him.

Even in the dark, she finds what she’s looking for straightaway, pulling a strand of pearls off its hook and draping them around her neck. One of many, her favorites, a gift from her mother on her wedding day.

She can hear Roman breathing behind her as the drawer clicks shut on its track, grabbing the side of the dresser to steady herself as she takes a deep breath in and out. In and out. Everything’s burning a little brighter than usual, a heartier hum than her typical nightly martini or three. 

“Up,” she instructs, gathering her cool, her back still turned to the bed. She feels the shifting balance of power so innate to their recent interactions slowly tipping into her court, just where she likes it, just where she needs it to be in order to slip beneath the surface of inhibition that tethers her to reality, and her skin flushes pink in the darkness. Roman’s shallow breathing intensifies in her ears as he swing his legs across the middle of the California king, leaning back onto the pillows and propping himself up by the elbows. “C’mere,” he breathes softly.

Gerri turns to face the bed and her heart speeds up in her chest, avoiding his gaze. “Fuck, Ger,” he whines. She soundlessly climbs to meet him, one leg over his as her knees sink into the mattress on either side of his pelvis. He’s hard; she can feel it, her heartbeat snaking its way down through the rest of her body, too.

“Hi,” she sighs, her breath catching in her chest as she looks him in the eyes for the first time since he handed her the joint. “Hey,” the reply. “You stone cold killer _bitch_.”

He puts one hand on each of her hips, an attempt to steady her and relieve any pressure on her knees. Glad for the assist, she arches her back as she leans her face down towards his, two profiles in parallel against the moonlight streaming in through the window. The pearls dislodge from her bra, swinging like a pendulum as they brush against Roman’s upper lip. He takes them between his teeth and sucks as she tenderly kisses his forehead, one hand steadying herself on the duvet and the other wrapping behind his neck. Her eyes scan down to meet his, those boyish brown eyes that, up until a month ago, she’d only ever really seen from across a boardroom table.

Her hand on the bed snaps up as she at first reflexively pushes her glasses up her nose, then moves to pull them off entirely, knowing they’ll get in the way. “No,” Roman pleas, swatting her hand away as the pearls fall out of his mouth. “Leave them. Please. You’re so fucking hot, I can’t—” Gerri grits her teeth with a throaty laugh, bubbling up into another round of giggles that she knows are thanks to her buzz. “I can’t— keep them on. Please.”

“Mmf,” is all she can muster as she gives up and plunges back towards his face, this time landing straight on his mouth as her tongue clashes with his for the first time, sloppy but perfect as pleasure shoots through her brain, once-dormant synapses she didn’t even knew were possible colliding. She feels thankful his hands have moved back to steady her hips again, allowing her to rhythmically buck against his knees as their lips languish against one another, pace quickening.

She lowers herself further so she’s fully on top of him, her breasts spilling out from the top of her bra as she lets herself settle onto his chest. The pearls, cold from weeks sitting in the drawer, feel like ice between their two warm bodies. Her tongue keeps working and her hips keep bucking as his hands move from her side to her back, slipping under her robe to slowly trace their way up the bones of her spine. His dick is still pulsing, ready, steady against her inner thigh, and she knows he won’t be able to stand it much longer.

She moves a hand to unzip his pants, breaking away from his mouth as she sits up to give his lower half her full attention. The hand still on his chest feels his heartbeat quicken so much she’s not sure it won’t burst, their breathing building in tandem as he she helps him wriggle free. “ _Ger_ ,” he yelps, slamming his head against a cocoon of pillows behind him.

“I’m here, baby. I’m here.”

She works her hand up and down, the balance of the scales toppling more firmly into her domain than it has been all night. Hours and evenings and weeks of practice having taught her just what to do now, how slow and steady to go to keep him there with her, on the same plane, two moving together as one for as long as she possibly can. His eyes squeeze shut involuntarily but he wills himself to open them, wanting to see her. He’s only ever wanted to see her.

It’s over as quickly as it began, but she doesn’t even have time to be disappointed before he jumps to attention and springs his back off the covers, ripping her robe off and pushing her down onto her back.

“Is this okay?” he pipes out, suddenly wanting to be careful with her. “Are you good?”

 _Is this okay?_ she thinks, nodding as the signature pouty smirk crawls across her face and her back settles into the memory foam. _This is…_

“Fuck me, Rome. Go ahead,” she breathes through the heat of the moment, taking off her glasses and flinging them onto her nightstand before she can stop him this time, knowing all he ever needs sometimes is a little encouragement. For all the degradation she’s spewed at him on the phone, all the razor-sharp insults hurled through the dead air, sometimes it’s the tenderness, a complete emotional 180, that somehow manages to send them both over the edge. A hand moves to unclasp her hair, letting it fall wildly around her face. “I know you can do it.”

Challenge accepted, his mouth flies to the lacy trim of her bra, tongue tracing the edge as her chest rises and falls underneath him. The tiny buttons that hold the wires in place taunt him as he slips one apart, then two, stuck on the third. She giddily watches him struggle until she can’t take it anymore, her manicured navy nails just long enough to easily undo the last of them, fabric finally falling to the wayside as he sits back to stare, just for a minute, his high scrambling his reflexes more than they’re usually scrambled at a moment like this. She lets out another throaty laugh as his brain catches up to his eyes and he dives back into her chest, the string of pearls all that stands between him and her exposed skin. “You got it,” her laugh turning the corner into a cackle. “You got it, Rome.” Roman rings out a laugh of his own, relaxing a bit as he joins with hers in strange and unexpected unison. She playfully yanks at the hem of his shirt and pulls it up in one fell swoop, tossing it on the pillow behind her.

His left hand cups her newly exposed flesh as his mouth snakes its way down her stomach, his right skimming across the waistband of her underwear. “You little slime puppy,” she spits at his touch, almost out of nowhere, calling back to one of their earliest phone encounters when everything still felt shaky and new. It surprises her how much those four words key her up, too. “Disgusting.”

The banter only makes Roman want her more, hurriedly yanking on the the sides of her underwear, the translucent, lace-lined cutouts down the front sliding away to reveal her bare flesh underneath. “ _Hhmph_ ,” he breathes into her stomach. He tosses the satiny fabric off the bed and is once again momentarily transfixed, unable to comprehend how he got to this moment, staring down the naked body of the woman who’s always been in his orbit, always burning in the background—but never, ever, ever like this until now. She lets him look.

A sharp gasp escapes her lips as his mouth makes contact. It’s their usual fare, his usual rhythm, but it’s turned up to 11 with the weed fully settled into her system, shockwaves of pleasure rolling from her center all the way to her edges in fits and starts with every passing second. Her typically quiet, breathy demeanor is out the window as a moan floats from the bottom of her stomach out through her mouth, grasping for anything she can grab—his hair, his hands, the sheets, whatever she can tangibly parse through her fingers as a means of momentary relief. She can feel him smiling into her clit as he goes, as proud of his progress as she is.

“Fingers,” Gerri manages to croak after she doesn’t even know how long, her hands threading through his hair, conscious even through the fog around her brain that she needs more. He pulls away and hoists his now-bare chest up to mirror hers, his turn now to hover over her, their two bodies breathing in tandem. Rise and fall.

Roman moves his right hand towards her lower half but she instinctively grabs his arm to remain in control, grip fierce as she yanks it up above them both, nearly catching in the pearls on the way. Careful not to break eye contact, she brings his hand to her lips and allows it rest for a split second as her eyes bore through him, tip of her tongue gently grazing his fingertips, teasing. She keeps her stare fixed on him, eyebrow arching involuntarily as her jaw slowly hinges open and his pointer and middle fingers dip behind her teeth, tongue languidly working around them in a way that snaps Roman back to attention in more ways than one.

Her own fingers still clasped tightly around his wrist, she pulls him away and guides his hand back down below her stomach. “No,” he quips, stopping her. “Let me.” His voice is uncharacteristically firm as he breaks himself free from her stronghold.

Before she can protest, there’s a terse inhale as he slowly works one finger inside her, then more quickly, the second and a third. Her head lolls to the side as she looks away and another groan escapes, flask bubbling over deliriously as she finally lets the scales fall in Roman’s favor, relinquishing her dominance for the first time all night.

The loss of control is somehow just what she needs to push herself to the edge, teetering for what feels like minutes until she can’t help herself anymore. She frantically flicks her hand down to complement his movement, matching his pace at first but gradually speeding up to let him know when she’s there, she’s there, she couldn’t possibly be more there; he’s done this enough times to recognize Gerri’s signals, too, face slamming back down to hers at the last possible second as he sucks her final, soundless exhale into his lungs. The last ripples of pleasure spread like pinpricks through her arms, her legs, her neck, her face. She’s flushed but she’s quiet, humbled and equalized.

Once he’s sure she’s satisfied, Roman lets himself flop beside her on top of the covers. She looks at him in awe, even after all these weeks, forehead to forehead.

“I, uh— love you,” he blurts.

—

Fucking shit. 

Of course, the resident dipstick blurted “I love you” out to the one woman he possibly wasn’t supposed to. Ever. 

The silence rings so loud in his ears. And he’s hot. And his head is buzzing. He doesn’t know if it’s the weed, the high of getting Gerri off, or his latest shitbag fucking word vomit. He can’t believe he fucking pathetically said I love you to yet another woman. Not just any other woman. But goddamn Geraldine Kellman.

He said it tonight because she has that flush on her skin, because she let him smoke a joint in her bathroom, because of the way he gets to see her hair in its natural curly state. He’s in awe because he’s the pathetic loser who she deems worthy of her time.

He used to casually throw those words around at any girlfriend—to make himself feel more competent, to make them stay. Every time those words tumbled out of his mouth, he knew he didn’t mean it. He knew it was just complicated airflow used to make a shit deal, like a half-hearted handjob, which of course means jackshit to his family. 

He’s been walking through life in a fog like a douchebag robot—not really being a human, not really awake to the world, and never, not ever, having fucking normo relationships. But here with her, he feels like maybe he can see through that fog for the first time. Woke up just in time before the nightmare gets terrifying, before he fucking hits the point of no return and ends up like Kendall. 

Of all the people in her life, Roman is the one who she would let in her home, her bed, her bathroom. He is the one who she will sometimes concede her control for, at least in bed. It’s a delicate thing she’s handed him. He knows it. He’s being challenged, he’s getting the biggest kick in the ass in his life yet, because he thinks…he thinks, he might be loved, _just_ might. The thought is foreign and terrifies the shit out of him, yet it warms him somewhere deep in his sternum. 

He pulls back slightly but doesn’t dare to look her in the eyes. Not yet, not after what he had just said.

Gerri puts her fingers under his chin, tilting his face up so they are meeting eye to eye.

“Rome, what was that?” Her voice is soft, so impossibly soft, like she’s afraid he’ll be spooked and run like a wild animal. He wonders if anyone else has heard this voice. If Baird heard this voice. He can’t help but think that it’s just for him. Of all the smart men, capable men, wealthy men in the world, she only uses this voice with him. Another delicate thing she’s handed him. 

A billion dollars under his name, yet she’s possibly the only good thing in his life. He can’t believe his luck, and a chuckle rips through him before he knows it, slowly coming back down to earth. He would bet his dick that she’s not genuinely asking but giving him an out, always able to prepare the next steps for him without him even realizing. How interesting that they’ve been dancing around each other like this for months, her berating him through the phone, and eventually letting him into her bed, and yet he still doesn’t know what it really means. That it’s taken a fucking pandemic and them cloistered in her apartment with no end in sight for him to confess.

He takes her hand and moves down gently to place a kiss on the pads of her fingers. With his other hand, he delicately brushes a strand of her hair behind her ear. As if he, Roman Roy, has ever been delicate before in his life.

He presses a soft kiss against her lips, and when he hears that now familiar hum in the back of her throat, he can’t help but to continue kissing her. He pushes himself up, floating over her slightly. He deepens the kiss and meets her tongue, nothing like the fire and spark of earlier, in its place something gentle and tender. The two of them in repose in the afterglow. He drags his hand from her hair and trails it across her collarbones gently, fingertips grazing her strand of pearls. He thinks he’ll never get over the feeling of her skin under his fingers, always cool to the touch but so warm, so _hot_ , after sex. 

He breaks away from the kiss for a brief moment, and whispers, “thank you.” So quiet, it could have been misconstrued as a breath of air, but not when they’re this close.

He tries to go in for another kiss, but she gives a gentle push to his shoulder and rolls them over. Her legs on either side of his hips, her hair falling down to frame her face like a curtain. They look at each other for a while longer, understanding passing between them. A myriad of things, all the things she handed him without him deserving it, deserving her. She gives him a doughy smile before gracefully swinging her right leg back over to her left, the pearls swaying with her movement. He watches her sit up to grab her glasses from where she discarded them earlier, and seeing her reposition them firmly back on her face, something stirs within him again. She gets up to rush toward the en-suite and he leans up on his elbow to watch her go. 

“Woah, take it slow there, I like the view,” he drawls, trying to muster up the charm and bravado of his usual persona. She turns and gives him a soft smile over her shoulder, adds an extra sway to her hips as she makes her way into the bathroom. 

He watches her go, unsure of what to do with himself. During quarantine he has seen her in various stages of undress in bed, but this? Watching her walk bare into bathroom with a sway in her hips? This, he was not prepared for. With a slight groan, he rolls over on his back and stares at the ceiling, marveling at how they got to this place. The pillows smell of her, lavender and sandalwood, and he wonders what will happen with them when they, inevitably, are out of this shitshow. He takes another deep breath, wafting in the smells and the slight musk in the air, and uses the tools his therapist has taught him. Counting quietly to gather his thoughts, but deciding this is not the time or place to go down that route. Not this evening, not when he finally uttered something that he realized has been resonating and rattling beneath his ribcage for weeks now. 

His attention turns back to the present moment when she exits the en-suite, gently rubbing lotion into her hands and rendering him breathless once again. He playfully rolls his eyes and asks in jest, “So, Mrs. Robinson, do I need to buy out La Perla so you can own every item in their catalogue?” She’s wearing a lush royal blue silk slip with a hem that skims just above her knees, delicate lace woven at the neckline. 

“You know very well I can afford whatever I want from there,” she quips. He’s astonished by how she can so seamlessly put herself back together, and he has deja-vu from earlier this evening. Her in delicate lace and lush silk, with her glasses and her pearls. While she quietly settles into her side of the bed, he notices the subtle peekaboo spot of lace that sits right at the center of her neckline, affording him a slight glimpse of the top of her breasts. 

He rolls sideways to throw an arm over her waist, pressing kisses right at the juncture of her frontside, determined to reach that spot of lace he’s now obsessed with. He continues flourishing kisses across her supple skin, making his way up her chest, across her collarbones, pausing to quickly nip ever so gently with his teeth. She tuts quietly above him, a quick warning, but he continues his path, eventually landing on her lips. He pulls back and notices that she has wiped off the remnants of lipstick in the bathroom, plus whatever was left of her eyeshadow and liner. She suddenly looks so much softer, and draped in her navy slip, her eyes so much bluer. 

“Goodnight, Mrs. Robinson,” he says as he rolls back over to turn off the lamp on his side, her doing the same in tandem. 

The room is then plunged into full darkness, lit only by the moonlight filtering in from windows overlooking the Hudson. He half expects her to stay on her side and waits for sleep to come, realizing for the first time he’s exhausted by the day’s events, professional and personal. 

As he’s drifting off to sleep, he feels her roll over to meet him, pressing her body against him and draping her right leg over his. “Don’t call me that,” she whispers. “And goodnight.” As she places a kiss on his chest, he wraps his arm around her and sighs in agreement, because he’ll always let her have the last word, but also because he’s halfway asleep.

—

He wakes with a start, the slightest glint of sunlight streaming through the bottom of the blackout shade he doesn’t remember closing last night.

Gently blinking his eyes to adjust to the glow of the rising sun, he lolls an arm behind him, catching the empty air and realizing he’s now alone in the bed. There’s the slightest indentation of Gerri’s body still etched into the memory foam and his heart skips a tiny beat as his mind powers on and he remembers, like he’s done so many mornings lately, where he is, where he’s been. What he said in the haze of his high last night.

5:57, the pearlescent blue light of Gerri’s alarm clock blinks from her bedside table. Her glasses are missing; all that’s there is a half-empty glass of water and her novel, a bookmark in page 7, some Ann Patchett something-or-other with fruit on the cover. She hasn’t been able to concentrate much on reading lately.

He zones out staring at the ceiling for a minute before gathering the wherewithal to pad to the bathroom, splashing his face with frigid water and swigging back a hint of Listerine he finds in the medicine cabinet nestled behind to a shitton of fancy face creams—Le Labo, La Mer, whatever-the-fuck. He sees the half-gone joint in the soap dish and smiles, can’t even be mad that it’ll be impossible to light again after sitting in a tiny pool of water all night.

The living room is mostly dark, but he’s not surprised to see the outline of Gerri through the French doors on the terrace, where she’s so often wordlessly disappeared to give herself literal and figurative air throughout the past three months. She’s still in her nightgown, the robe from the night before around draped over her arms; her hands are clasped and she’s leaning over the railing as she stares off at the high rises stretching all the way down the West Side Highway, where they’d usually be headed at this hour in another version of their current reality. He contemplates letting her be, not interrupting her private morning reverie, but in a weird way, he already kind of misses her. ( _Shit?!_ )

She doesn’t turn around when she hears the door open behind her, but she senses he’s there. She unflinchingly leans into his embrace as he sidles up behind her, threading his arms around her waist. “Good morning, lady Kellman,” he half-whispers into her ear, pecking her cheek and inhaling the sweet scent of her hair mixed with the crisp June air into his lungs. He thinks he could stay here all day if she let him, but he immediately shakes the thought away, not wanting to set himself up for even the slightest disappointment knowing the stacked docket of meetings that await them both in just a few short hours. A now-routine exercise in Zoom backgrounds and closed doors to muffle the sound of one another on the other side of her walls, nowhere near time yet to give themselves away to the rest of the world. “Good morning, Rome.” Her voice catches slightly in her mouth, fuzzy from sleep, the first words she’s said that day. She clears her throat, pulling his arms tighter around her midsection.

They stay exactly as they are as the sun rises over the river, eyes groggy, limbs tangled, not speaking because they don’t need to. Happy and afloat on a surprisingly buoyant raft in a royal shitstorm swirled inside a global pandemic.

Gerri is the first to pull away, turning around to face Roman with a mellow kiss on the lips. Of course she’s already brushed her teeth and her hair is back up in a polished bun, golden hour light reflecting through the wisps that frame her face as it reflects off her deep, searching eyes. “Good morning, Rome,” she says again, voice more steady, as incredulous as he is that they’re somehow together in this moment. “You ready for the day?”

He wants to say no, because she’s here in his arms with the light in her hair. But he knows she deserves an equal partner. So he gives her another kiss, languid, so they can luxuriate in this for a bit longer before the day starts. Then he gives a brief nod and heads off to pour her her morning coffee, content in the knowledge that there’ll be plenty more nights in her arms.

**Author's Note:**

> dress is a perfect gerri + roman song
> 
> our first popcorn'ed writing attempt, thanks jess & jules


End file.
